Sanssouci awarded its annual M100 prize for press freedom to Chinese blogger Michael Anti. Born Jing Zhao in 1975, he took the pseudonym Michael Anti. After working as a reporter in Iraq and as an assistant in the Beijing bureau of The New York Times, he now is a freelancer and one of the country’s most read independent bloggers, with more than two million subscribers. He accepted the Sanssouci award at the event’s concluding dinner, given in the opulent palace of 18th century Prussian king Frederick the Great. “Freedom of Speech is not a privilege of the United States,” he declared. “It is for all of us.”

Michael Anti at the awards ceremony, talking with attendees and media.

Photo credit: Juergen Rocholl/FACE

Anti’s award came at the end of a fascinating day of discussion and debate attended by activist bloggers from Belarus to Tunisia and beyond, and by leading German editors-in-chief and media professionals. Under the heading Global Democracy - A Triumph for Social Networks? the high-profile participants discussed the importance of blogs and social networks. Most participants concluded that the Internet is not the cause for unrest, merely a conduit for expressing a population’s already felt grievances. “There was no Internet and the trade union Solidarity still counted 10 million members a month after it was born in 1981,” noted Grzegorz Jankovski, editor-in-chief of the Polish daily Fakt.

Many participants were surprised when I explained how the protections for Internet platforms operating at scale in the EU’s E-Commerce Directive are being chipped away at by the courts, including obligations to review material as it is uploaded. An Italian judge last year convicted three Google employees for a video uploaded to a Google platform, even though they have never produced, approved or even seen the video. The forum proved a good opportunity to explain Google’s support for freedom of expression, for example by ensuring that the number of requests made of by governments are available on our Transparency Report. I also described our participation in the Global Network Initiative.

Participants pointed to a number of pressing issues, starting with Europe's debt crisis, as reasons behind government failure to pay better attention to free expression. Some in the audience suggested that Germany’s strong business ties to China and Russia have precluded most criticism of these countries. The Sanssouci organisers took a stand against these trends in making their freedom award to a Chinese blogger and in hosting Russia activists. We look forward to participating again next year in this exciting debate.

Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa

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